ABSTRACT
In a society in which the use of alcohol has been symbolically associated with an adult behavior pattern and in which the use of alcohol is legally regulated, surveys have noted that few adolescents wait until they reach “drinking age” to sample alcohol [1–3]. After proclaiming the prevalence of alcohol use among adolescents, researchers, in many cases, fail, however, to extend their analysis further. Singer emphasized that drugs are rarely the abuser’s real problem, but were rather only symptomatic of a more deep seated disorder, and added [4]:
… if we treat the symptom (alcohol abuse) and not the underlying problem, the abuser will probably return to drugs, because the problem that originally led him to it still exists.
